


Sinners and Saints and in Between

by Zetared



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 03:06:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetared/pseuds/Zetared
Summary: The little brat said leave well off, the traitors have ascended to some state of terrifying immunity, and, honestly, the question “what now?” seems pretty trite, all things considered.The Prince of Hell and Saint Michael the Archangel commiserate. And kiss.





	Sinners and Saints and in Between

**Author's Note:**

> Beelzebub’s pronouns are ze/zir (because Neil Gaiman made the “zzzir” joke and, honestly, it’s delightful) and Michael’s are they/them.

They’re hardly strangers.

That’s what Michael thinks as they sit down across from the Prince of Hell. It’s a soothing thought, in a way. The phrase “known thine enemy” means a lot to those Above and Below. They were all once siblings, after all. They were all once the same in the eyes of God. Their enemies are, indeed, _known._ (The phrase “in a Biblical sense” is not entirely untrue here, either).

But, more pertinently, they’ve been conspiring together for eons, ever since God went quiet and the need for cooperation became paramount to the successful running of the ever-expanding universe.

Contact made every few centuries had increased to every handful of years and, especially lately, every few days. Sometimes, of course, such messages went to intermediaries. (Gabriel, for example, rather fancies himself the keeper of Heaven and getting the odd missive from Hell makes him feel important). However, for the most part, the lines of communication had remained clear and open between Beelzebub and Michael and those two alone.

Beelzebub looks up as Michael arrives and sits down. Ze tilts zir head in shallow greeting, carefully keeping a blank, stony expression. Or perhaps that simply came naturally. Neither the Prince of Hell nor zir Heavenly companion were entirely comfortable in their corporations, after all.

Without their Heavenly aspect, Michael looks strange to Beelzebub’s eyes. Their skin is no longer luminous. They have wrinkles, faintly, about the eyes.

Conversely, Michael raises an eyebrow at the sight of Beelzebub’s face, zir skin strangely pale and smooth, unmarked by the weeping sores to which the angel is far more accustomed. There’s a conspicuous absence of flies about zir head, as well. Though the headpiece ze wears instead is equally fetching. 

If fetching is the word.

Michael does not ask “what now?” The little brat said leave well off, the traitors have ascended to some state of terrifying immunity, and, honestly, the question “what now?” seems pretty trite, all things considered. But the implication is there as they raise their hand and summon a human to bring them a drink.

Angels have no need to consume alcohol. For that matter, neither do humans. Few humans on the planet have had as horrific a week as what the archangel has just experienced. They can be forgiven, then, perhaps, for their desire to get utterly, absolutely sloshed.

Beelzebub seems of the same mind. Ze orders a few bottles of “something so nasty it’ll kill us” and leaves it at that. Michael nods their approval in a stiff jerk of their neck. 

“Your lot,” Beelzebub says, after ze has drained zir glass dry twice over, “really screwed us over, eh?”

“My lot?” Michael replies, affronted. They sip their own glass pretentiously a few times before sighing heavily and throwing it back with fervor. “What about yours? Delivering the antichrist was _not_ a difficult assignment.”

Beelzebub shows zir teeth in a primal, aggressive display.

Michael, despite themselves, makes an effort, and the resulting warmth in the pit of their guts is as thrilling as it is vile.

“Crawly’s always been _weird_ ,” Beelzebub declares, drawing out the last word marvelously. 

“Hm. Aziraphale, too.”

“Should have expected it.”

“Should have _suspected_ it,” Michael adds, grimly. They’ll never forgive themselves for not checking up on the principality before. All those clandestine meetings, right under Heaven’s very nose! What a disgrace. They pour another drink.

“No war,” Beelzebub says, mournfully.

“No glorious victory over you tossers once and for all,” Michael agrees, morosely.

Beelzebub looks at Michael. Michael looks back.

Michael does not remember who Beelzebub was, before. The days before the Fall had been numerous but limited. There had been many of them, too many to feasibly know every one, to remember every lost, burned-up name and mutilated countenance. 

Beelzebub brushes zir booted foot against the edge of Michael’s soft gray trousers. “There are other ways to be victorious,” ze says, voice falling into that low, insectine buzz.

“Not here,” Michael says, which makes the demon laugh.

“No, obviously not. Wouldn’t be proper.”

Michael narrows their eyes at Beelzebub, nearly goaded into it, after all. But they refrain. The last thing they want to mess with is miracling away the memories of a bunch of hairless apes. Besides, such a thing probably constitutes “messing about,” and wouldn’t that just be a lark to report to Heaven? ‘Sorry for the trouble with the antichrist, sirs. I wanted to get my leg over the Prince of Hell, you see, and those blasted humans were in the way.’

They finish their bottles. Mostly, they do so in silence. But from time to time, Beelzebub will say something like “D’you know they’ve got things called _roombas_?” and Michael will say something like “I will never understand humans’ fascination with spoons” and so on.

By the time the bottles are empty and the hapless waitstaff are throwing them pleading glances, it is well past dark out in the world. Michael watches with dim amusement as Beelzebub stands up and wavers. Michael holds their liquor far better than any mere _demon_ ever could _obviously_. At which point Michael takes a step forward and promptly falls on their arse.

Beelzebub laughs and reaches down, pulling Michael’s corporation onto their feet. “Pshhh, mighty warrior of Heaven,” the demon taunts. 

“Buzz off,” Michael says, and then laughs at their own joke while Beelzebub scowls.

“Oughta drop you for that,” ze threatens. But does not.

“I’d smite you, if you did,” Michael replies. But they wouldn’t.

Together, leaning on each other for all they are worth, the angel and demon stumble out of the pub and into the quiet streets of Tadfield. It seemed right, meeting there. 

“Where now?” Beelzebub asks. Zir breath smells of alcohol and zir skin smells of sulphur and rot. Michael takes a deep breath in through their nose, savoring the stench.

“Hotel?” Michael suggests. They’ve done that before. Probably a good three centuries back, now, though. Perhaps things have changed. Perhaps no one has empty lodgings for sale for two strange-looking beings with lust obviously in mind.

(Michael has long ago convinced themselves that lust, in and of itself, is not _very_ sinful. Engaging in lustful activities with a demon is likely borderline. But who will stop them? What has Michael to fear but God, and where is She, that Her opinions are so important?)

Beelzebub tugs on their arm. “Or behind this tree,” ze says. For the first time, zir corporation shows an emotion beyond aggression or stony-faced blankless. Ze grins, wide and genuine and decidedly wicked.

Michael rolls their eyes but follows along. There are things worth arguing about with their mortal enemy, but where’s the best place to shag is not one, especially. Even if coupling in the woods will almost certainly stain every inch of Michael’s prim gray suit with streaks of mud and green chlorophyll.

Michael does not remember who Beelzebub might have been before the Fall. But they do know, quite intimately, who the Prince of Hell is, now. Satan’s right hand, a terror to all lesser demons. Ze takes care of all the day-to-day runnings of Hell and does so with no mercy and an astonishing adeptness--the recent kerfuffle with the End of Days notwithstanding. Michael had spent much of their early years as enemies alternately awed and full of a seething, ugly jealousy. Their right hand man, after all, is Gabriel. He can hardly compare. 

Beelzebub pulls Michael around and throws them--not gently--against the side trunk of an especially large, lush tree. In the moonlight, Beelzebub’s corporation shifts a bit, zir inner presentation coming through. A few flies appear from nowhere, buzzing around zir head. Zir skin goes bulbous with sores. Something noxious and viscous drips down the demon’s chin. Michael licks it away and then pulls the Prince into a kiss, possessive and with all the violence once might expect from a former soldier of the Lord.

“I’ve been thinking of a plan,” Beelzebub says breathily against and into Michael’s mouth. 

“Oh?” Michael hedges, tilting their neck back for the demon to kiss down it. 

“Not a Plan, mind you. But a plan. Us, you see. Your lot and my lot. Against _them_.”

Michael considers this with as much clarity as is possible when one is making an effort and rather distracted by it. “Oh. I approve.”

Beelzebub smiles against the hollow of Michael’s collarbone. “Figured you would.”

“Then a war between us, after?” Michael asks, just to be thorough. They would still quite like to ramb their sword through Lucifer’s fat, red neck, one day.

Beelzebub pauses. “Is that what you want?” Zir eyes look up at Michael through the antenna of zir headpiece. In the moonlight, they glimmer silver. Michael cannot, in that moment, imagine their sword anywhere near the Prince of Hell zirself.

“No,” Michael admits, more a breath than a word. Beelzebub has pulled away almost entirely now, looks ready to flee, and that just won’t do. It’s been three hundred years, give or take a few. That’s too long to wait for another go.

“But it would happen anyway, wouldn’t it?” Beelzebub presses, frowning, now, making the brows of zir corporation pull together in a way that troubles Michael more than they would ever admit. 

“It would be necessary,” Michael says, with relative certainty. “I don’t believe either of us sides could possibly resist.”

Beelzebub hums. Ze goes back to kissing Michael, for a time. Then, ze pulls back again. “Then no more wars, I suppose.”

Michael swallows. It’s a terrifying thought. No attempt at Armageddon? No final war between the forces of Good and Evil? If not that, then what? What is the ineffable plan, if not their mutually assured destruction? 

“I suppose so,” they say, nodding, mind made up. Breaking the news to Gabriel and the rest will be a trial, but they can do it. They are Michael the Archangel, after all.

“Small price to pay,” Beelzebub mutters, tugging Michael down to the ground.

Michael huffs. “Tell that to my suit,” they grouse, but they go where Beelzebub leads them. They arch up as Beelzebub archs down. They meet zir lips kiss for kiss and it is familiar and yet as new and strange as ever. Michael is not fool enough to call it “blessed,” but it’s something near it, something parallel, something close.

Michael’s short-clipped nails run down Beelzebub’s bare back, skirting the edges of where zir wings might be in a different plane of existence. The demon grinds down hard in response, just as punishing, just as forgiving, just as right.

Afterward, they sprawl in the dirt among the detris of the woods. Twigs tangle easily in Beelzebub’s flyaway hair. Michael shifts the weight of their bum, rocking away from the jarring presence of a rather sharp bit of stone. Beelzebub rolls on top of Michael bodily, head tilting speculatively as they meet eye-to-eye. 

“I can convince Satan to station me here, I think. Parttime, at least.”

Michael’s eyes widen in surprise. “ _Here_?”

“It’s neutral ground, isn’t it?”

Michael can hardly imagine manning such a post. The earth, crawling with humankind, so mortal and grimy and utterly beneath their own ethereal might. 

Suddenly, however, the answer to “what now?” seems quite clear. There are no wars on the horizon. No need to press their advantage on the human race one way or the other, thanks to the declaration of one stubborn little boy. All of eternity stretches out before them and the ground on which they sprawl now is, truly, neither of Heaven nor of Hell.

Michael tightens their lips together in thought and then breathes a soft sigh of resignation from their nose. “Well, that’s all right, then” they agree.

Beelzebub kisses their nose. Ze hops to zir feet and snaps zir clothes back to rights. “I’m going to go down now and make my request. You should go up and do the same.”

“What, now?”

Beelzebub’s eyes rove hungrily over the expanse of Michael’s bare skin. “What’s the point in waiting?”

Which is, in fact, a perfectly valid point. 

“Opportunistic,” Michael accuses. Heaven and Hell are in chaos, at the moment. It’ll be child’s play, pushing such outlandish requests through. 

“Practical,” Beelzebub counters, firmly. Ze leans over and offers Michael a hand, which they take. 

“Meet here, when it’s done?” Michael asks.

“ _Here_?” Beelzebub asks, unconsciously echoing Michael from before.

The angel lifts a shoulder stiffly. (Already, they start to mimic the humans, already, they start to change). “It’s neutral ground, isn’t it?”

“The antichrist lives here,” Beelzebub argues, sounding amused.

“It’s quaint,” Michael says, winningly. “It’s quiet. And, besides, what better way to convince our superiors of our positions? Someone ought to be _observing_ the boy, after all. Just in case.”

Beelzebub’s smile is sharp as razor blades. “Clever. Always so _annoyingly_ clever.”

Michael miracles their suit back into place. “Meet me here,” they repeat.

“Sure.”

“Wait.”

Michael grabs Beelzebub by the nape, pulls zir in for another deep kiss. “Don’t tarry.”

Beelzebub snorts. “Being _punctual_ is not a demonic trait.”

“Then make it worth my while, when you finally get back.”

And Beelzebub agrees to that without hesitation at all.

Michael waits a moment alone in the dark of the wood before returning to Heaven. They take a deep lungful in of the crisp air and let it out again, speculative in the way that only an angel can be about the simple pleasures of a semi-corporeal existence. They throw out their wings in preparation for flight.

“What now?” Now, everything.


End file.
